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Bicester Branch Striking Competition 2024

After an initial postponement, due to a clash of events, the competition was rather hastily rescheduled for 21st September, at Islip. Kathryn Grant offered to host the BBQ in her garden, which is very close to the church.

Steady rain from early morning threatened to put the dampers on proceedings, literally. However, by around 3pm the rain had stopped, the clouds started clearing and the sun came out. By 6pm there was hardly a cloud in the sky, so chairs and tables were put out in the garden and the barbecue was fired up.

Then the main event (the actual striking competition, not the BBQ) started. The change of date had, unfortunately, meant that some towers were unable to enter a full team, but with a little bit of jiggling around, we managed to add a further three teams to the three already put forward (which were Islip A and B teams, and Kirtlington). The additions were a Youth Team, Bicester United, and a scratch team to give Islip’s newest recruit, 12-year-old Felix, a chance to have a go (at the time of the competition, he’d only just started to ring rounds and call changes on his own).

Each team rang either Grandsire Doubles, Bob Doubles or Call Changes and the ringing was pretty even for all teams.

Hugh Deam and Maarit Kivilo very kindly agreed to be the judges and were very kind with their après-ringing comments too. The placings were nail-bitingly close, but Islip B team was judged to be the overall winner.

The final result was:

Islip B78%
Youth Team76%
Bicester Utd70%
Islip A66.5%
Scratch team (with Felix)55%
Kirtlington 45%

The International Space Station went over the garden just as Hugh
was announcing the results. One wonders if they managed to get a photo of the occasion.

Around 25 ringers and guests enjoyed a veritable feast of burgers,
hot dogs, salads and puddings. Everyone enjoyed the evening, and it was nice to have a relaxing, sociable time, under a starry sky, once the stress of the competition was over.

Many thanks to Kathryn for hosting the BBQ.

Teresa Carter

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Branch Practice at Caversfield 11/11/2021

Seven ringers from five towers and two branches came to tonight’s Branch Practice at Caversfield, including Colin Lee our Guild steward and his nine-year-old son, Simon. Simon is confidently ringing up and down in peal and trebling to doubles methods, and so was a most welcome addition to our band.

We were joined by Anne, Jeremy, Kathryn Grant and Teresa. What was also special about tonight’s practice was that Tina, the Churchwarden and local lay minister, had laid on a wonderful array of cakes with tea and coffee, so all those who didn’t make it should know what you were missing!

We went through a pretty full repertoire of plain doubles methods, including plain courses and touches of Bob doubles, Grandsire doubles, St Simons doubles (with Anne and Kathryn inside) and Reverse Canterbury, for Teresa.

Simon joined us on four for a good lower, ending in Weasels.

The next Branch Practice is on Tuesday 23rd November, at Bicester. See you then!

Steve Vickars

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Bicester Special Practice 15 May 2017

On Monday 15th May Bicester hosted the May Special practice. The nominated methods were Little Bob Minor and Grandsire Triples. 11 branch ringers attended making it quite an interesting practice.
First we rang up the back 6 (hoping we would get enough to ring triples) and then we rang up the front 4.
We rang plain courses of Grandsire Doubles for Helen before trying the first of the nominated methods – Little Bob Minor – we managed two plain courses without any trouble 🙂
A few more ringers arrived making it posible to ring 8 bells so we rang plain hunt on 7 and then 8. Feeling we had a good chance of managing it, we attempted plain courses of Grandsire Triples – and managed two courses successfully.
At this point I thought we could actually manage even more advanced ringing, but before we tried that Simon and Amanda arrived making us 11. Whilst they caught their breath from the climb up the tower we rang a touch of Grandsire Doubles with Helen half-hunt and Jeremy calling, again successfully .. nothing was going to stop us it seems 🙂
Time for the 10! We rang plain hunt on 9..shaky at first and then the striking improved as we rang more courses.
Time to push out the boat .. Plain Bob Major.. a few nervous faces and one jibe about bets on how far we would would get.. we only had time for one attempt before Steve had to head off to work, but that was all we needed 🙂 All the way through (with a few pointers) and a very pleased band!
We had time for some more plain hunt on 7 and 8 before ringing the back 8 down in peal (rather well struck too!)

An excellent last special practice for Sarah and I, but we still have one more branch event before we move north of the border. Hopefully see some of you at the practice at Middleton Stoney on Wed 7th June.


Anthony Cole

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Stratton Audley practice April 2017

On Wednesday 5th April Stratton Audley welcomed 11 branch ringers from 5 branch towers.

Despite trepidation from some, we did manage to ring the bells fairly well once folk got used to the ring springy ropes. We started with a touch Grandsire Doubles and then rang plain hunt on 5. Next was a touch of Plain Bob Doubles followed by more plain hunt. Bill managed a touch of Grandsire Doubles later in the evening and we finished with two (rather well struck) plain courses of Reverse Canterbury before ringing down and heading to the pub. During the evening there was a discussion about the possibility of one person ringing two bells (not sure who brought that up, but Jeremy declined so I stepped up and showed that it was possible, and thus there wasn’t anything wrong with the bells). A video will be posted if Debbs can get it to me!

The next branch event is the Branch Outing on Sat 22nd April. Do please come along if you can – promises to be a good day of ringing in the Witney & Woodstock branch – see Branch Outing details for details, and please let Jeremy know if you are coming so he can book a place for your lunch.

Anthony Cole

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Bletchingdon Special Practice March 2017

On Wednesday 15th March Bletchingdon welcomed 15 ringers from across the Bicester and Witney & Woodstock branches to focus efforts on Grandsire and Plain Bob Doubles.

We started with plain courses of Grandsire Doubles before moving on to plain hunt on 5 and 6 (well done Sue for first attempt on 6). We then tried a touch of Grandsire but that didn’t go quite to plan.

We next had a go at Plain Bob Doubles (plain courses) and then more plain hunt on 5 & 6.

More Grandsire and Plain Bob Doubles followed and more plain hunt for Sue. We managed a touch of Plain Bob Doubles (well done Stephen and Steve inside, and Judith on the treble) and a further touch of Grandsire (well done Steve).

We finished with a shaky but successful touch of Plain Bob Minor (with Singles.. thanks Fay for suggesting Singles :D), and a fairly good down.

Next on our schedule is the branch practice on Wed 5th April at Stratton Audley – see you there!

Anthony Cole

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Kirtlington BP March 2017

On Monday 6th March Kirtlington hosted the March branch practice. We started with just six ringers from Bicester and Kirtlington, but were soon joined by Jan and Richard from Ludgershall and Stephen from Charlton. After some call changes on 8, Judy and Hugh made our number up to 11. We did call changes and several variations of plain hunt on 5 through to 8, mostly very reasonable, including a variant, called “churchyard bob”.

We rang a fairly well struck touch of Grandsire Doubles and two plain courses of Plain Bob Triples, before we were joined by the newly installed rector of Kirtlington Gareth, who very gamely had a go at ringing back stroke. We hope to see Gareth again soon and maybe we’ll see his name on a peal board in the tower, emulating clerical ringers of yore 🙂

After ringing down all 8 in peal, some of us repaired to the Dashwood for a well earned drink.

Anthony Cole